Clarice began helping to pack everything, getting ready to part, she hated the point of not being prepared, it would have been nice to pass along her apprtment and get a few things, but it was better like this, anyway its not like she needed a lot when she was around Myra.

"We're ready," Torrence said eventually. "I think we have everything we need."

"Good," Myra said. "Vince said to meet him at Ragnar Castle, whatever it was they were doing when we left them has seemingly been finished."

""Ragnar Castle?" Aaron asked with a laugh. "That's less of a hiding place and more of a fortress. I suppose at least we know the CIA would have a hard time getting inside it even if they knew we were there."

"You can thank Myst for Ragnar," Aaron said with a laugh. "It belonged to his family and, when his powers manifested, his parents used it to hide him from the hunters. When they died he gave it to the Underground as one of its bases of operation. Its a huge castle, packed with enough food and drink to survive a very long siege and which has only two safe ways in and out of it, every other route is booby-trapped. Luckily for us Myst knows which are the safe ways in."

"Its hidden up in the Rocky Mountains," Myst said, a smile playing across his lips. "I know, strange place to find a castle. Makes it even more difficult to get into it if me or the Underground don't want you to though."

"We'd better move soon," Torrence said. "I think someone may have tipped the CIA off that there's something weird going on in here."

"Not weird, actually its like the perfect location, just wrong time and continent... I suppose is one of those castle's that either people translated from Europe rock by rock or simply had the money to built it... lots of money I guess." said Clarice smiling, taking her back "well I am ready, lets go before they get to us. We might have less time than we think?" said Clarice, maybe having seen the not so far future.

"Either way we need to go," Myra said calmly, in spite of inwardly feeling worried. "I don't fancy trying to defend this place if they do attack."

The others all gathered around her linking hands with her. For an instant everything went black and then suddenly they found themselves in a huge vault, whose ceiling stretched far enough above them they couldn't catch a glimpse of it.

"Sorry Myst," Myra said, laughing. "This was the first room of your castle that came to mind."

"This is the basement," Myst said, smiling as he guessed the confusion some were feeling at how he knew where they were. "The echo tells me where it is. This is where the Underground hides some of its more unusual...toys," he said, laughing.

Clarice smiled "well you like it enough to be around to remember the place better than anywhere else" said Clarice playful to her friend "but aye lets go to a more open space, too much under site before being under site."

They left the basement, climbing the stairs till they reached a huge courtyard which was teeming with men and women of all sorts of ages. Some had more obvious abilities than others, such as a girl who was teleporting to catch a ball two boys were trying to play catch with, while others had either subtler powers or were unwilling to display them. They saw Vince, Milo and Clive deep in conversation with a tall man wearing a rather battered looking old military uniform.

"That is the head of the Hero Underground himself," Jason said out of the corner of his mouth. "Tom Sampson. He's a telepath of great ability, although he's also a highly trained swordsman."

"Myst and Jason are part of the Inner Circle so you'll know at least two of them," Milo said with a smile. "I'll make sure Sampson introduces the others to you before we get down to the more serious business. They don't bite...well, most of them don't anyway," he said, laughing.

He took them to one of the rooms at the centre of the castle which was laid out like a theatre, a raised stage at its centre with ten chairs around its centre. Sampson was sat in the largest chair, Myst to one side and Jason to the other. Sat to Myst's immediate left was a woman they'd seen in the courtyard who had powers similar to those ofAaron. Sampson stood up when he noticed them entering.

"Welcome Myra and Clarice," he said. "I should introduce you to the Inner Circle. Myst and Jason you are already familiar with, Sara there," he said, pointing to the girl next to Myst, "is Myst's cousin, a pyrokinetic." The other six were a mix of powers, there was a man amed Rock who could turn his skin to steel, Frederic, a young French man who could travel at incredible speed, Samson who clamed to be able to hit like a charging rhino and a shapeshifter who was known only as Enigma. There were also three other women, Talia who could see the future like Clarice could, a telekinetic called Metre and a rather moody young woman who Tom introduced simply as Maria, but not revealing her powers. "You rarely find all the inner circle in one location, which should tell you the scale of threat we have discovered arrayed against us.

Clarice efectively was thinking on what kind of problem was ariseing as to call for everyone at the same place, which was a considerable risk even in this kind of fortress, "so we have an idea when the ray from the outer space is arriving or we have more local problmes?"

"We have made one discovery," Rock said, taking a set of papers from inside a briefcase he had at his feet. "We assumed the satellite they used to attack Earth must be the one pointing at Titan, but then while earching through records we received from the Archangel computers we discovered there was a satellite we'd never known about. This one is pointing straight AT Cape Canaveral, even in our time."

"So the aliens are already plotting their attack?" Milo asked as he studied the picture of the satellite before passing it to Clarice.

"That's where it gets worse," Sara replied. "They didn't aim it at Cape Canaveral, someone in the CIA did that already. It appears someone is spying on NASA."

Clarice checked the photos "for that there should be something really valuable, something NASA is hiding, maybe something that might help the alien force arrive here" Clarice passed the photo along "either that or CIA has been compromised from the beginning... and the invasion had begun long ago, they are just preparing for the mass deployment, in a way is logic, they are terminating the only threaten to the alien wave, they are aiming the satellite we now all know will serve the aliens to create their portal."

"It may just be the upper echelons of the CIA that have been compromised," Myst said. "After all Clarice is on our side so clearly she hasn't be compromised."

"We've tried destorying the satellite," Frederic replied. "But it has some form of shielding around it, ordinary weapons are useless against it and we can't get any powered people up there by any means we've yet found."

Clarise smiles at the nod of being on their side, but hearing of the dangers of the satellite "then we need to find a way to shut it down from here. There must be a place where it is being controlled, that would be our best chance to shut if off before hell breaks loose."

"That might be where Tanya here comes in useful," om said, nodding towards the quiet and rather grumpy looking girl. "She has a friend who has a bit of a knack for discovering pieces of information people don't want us to know. Just tell her where to look and she should be able to find out."

Clarise nods "sounds good" and she moved to Tanya, telling her about the satelite arrays they know and who controls some of them, maybe he can get the true location of where to shut down the dangerous satellity looming with doom over them.